It sounds to me that there would be some initial pain in the change, but in the interest of scalability overall the benefits would outweigh the initial PITA.
BTW, I think your approach to this topic - respond or don't complain later might be a better than polls for this group. Just keep track and if someone whines later smack them!
Steve -
Do what you conclude is best. I'm not a heavy user of the gallery, rather I use the embedded pic feature much more. My gallery is on my web site and when I have picture intensive postings I usually post a link to the appropriate page.
So what ever works for the most members, and your sanity, I'm good with it.
that gallery on the other site was lightning fast compared to what I get here. If the software you are using here has no updates or tech support than I would say change it now before something goes completely wrong and all is lost.